


The Reward  of Distrust 2

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: AU, Gen, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 23:20:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13845159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Blair finds a new apartment





	The Reward  of Distrust 2

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Bingo prompt 'wild card'

 

Reward of Distrust 2

by Bluewolf

Blair drove into the parking lot of Rainier University with a sigh of relief. He was beginning to feel very sleepy; and although there were times when grading kept him busy well into the night, his preferred bedtime was roughly midnight, and it was fully three hours past that.

His favorite parking spot was - at three in the morning - empty. Come to that, the entire parking lot was empty apart from two or three cars that he knew had to belong to Security. He retrieved his sleeping bag from the trunk, got into the front passenger seat and tipped it back, toed off his shoes and pulled the sleeping bag up around his shoulders, closed his eyes and instantly slipped into a world of dreams.

***

He woke with the dawn, blinking still-sleepy eyes at the brightening sky. For the briefest of moments he wondered where he was and then memory connected.

Finding a new apartment was no longer something he had a few days to check out. It had become his first essential.

At least Dr. Stoddard would be sympathetic.

He checked his watch. He would be able to get into Hargrove Hall in a few minutes. He could use the locker room facilities - as he usually did - to shower and shave, and heat water for coffee in his 'office'. Breakfast would be his fall-back of a cheese sandwich. By the time he had showered and eaten, he would, he hoped, be ready to face the day.

He stretched, yawning, clambered out of his sleeping bag, put it back in the trunk, took out his suitcase of food and made his way into Hargrove Hall.

***

He was just finishing his second sandwich - he had discovered that he was surprisingly hungry - when there was a quick knock on the door of the storage room he had taken over as his office, the door opened and Eli Stoddard came in.

"Eli?" This was unusual.

"You _were_ the Rainier student involved in that fire near the docks last night?" The worry in his voice was palpable.

"It made the papers?"

"Yes. You weren’t named, but… What happened?"

"I'm not entirely sure. You know I had to rent part of one of those old warehouses when I was doing the study with Larry. I finished it a few days ago, but I'd had to pay rent for the full month, so although I was looking to move back into a proper apartment, I was still sleeping there. Last night I saw someone in the other half of the building, didn't risk going in - and then there was an explosion that set fire to the whole place. I risked going in then, to retrieve what I could - it only took a couple of minutes - and phoned 911. So my involvement was fairly minor," he finished. "I don't know who moved in or what caused the explosion."

"Did you lose much?"

"Only the cheap TV I bought for the study. I'd left most of my things here. But Eli, I would like - if possible - to spend today looking for an apartment."

"Yes, of course - and if you don't find anywhere, I've got a spare room you can use - no, no, my boy, no objections; you give me so much help! I appreciate your wish to be independent, but this is an emergency situation. And even if you find an apartment today, you probably won't be able to move into it for a few days. I'm not leaving you to sleep in your car or on your office floor when I have a spare room standing empty."

Blair gave a weak smile. "What can I say but thank you. But I won't take advantage of your kindness - "

"That's the last thing I'd expect of you. If you have a fault, it's that you're too independent."

"Blame my mother for that. So often when she visited someone I saw her overstaying her welcome... and she never seemed to realize it."

Eli Stoddard nodded. He had met Naomi Sandburg once, and that meeting had told him so much about Blair... Since he was about eight, Blair had had to be the responsible adult in his relationship with his mother, but as a young child he had often had to fall in with what she wanted; all he could do was minimize any problems that resulted from 'what she wanted'. Just how she was managing now without her son's sense of responsibility... Blair had to be worried about her, but at the same time he had his own life to live.

"All right. I'll be here till five. If you haven't found an apartment by then - or have one but can't move in for a few days - come to my office. If you have found someplace and are able to move in today, just let me know. And if you don't find an apartment today, take tomorrow to keep on looking."

"Thanks."

Stoddard grinned. "Good luck." He walked out, knowing that Blair wouldn't appreciate more insistence on his part.

With Stoddard gone, Blair checked his watch. Nearly half past 8. He couldn't expect anywhere to be open before 9, so he powered up his laptop and accessed a paper he had started about the apparent need some people had to own a pet - and if the pet they chose said anything about them. He was leaning on his memory of pet-owners he had known, and once a first - very rough - draft was finished, he would try to interview some of the students, and even, perhaps, some of the professors... as well as speaking to the owners of Cascade's two pet shops and the local vets.

Then, before he started, he snapped his fingers and set the alarm on his watch. No point in getting so absorbed in what he was writing that he forgot about his need to go apartment-hunting!

He hadn't had time to look at the document for at least a week, so he started off by reading through what he had already written, making one or two corrections as he went.

He was just finishing when there was a knock on the door; it opened and a tall man entered.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Sandburg?"

"Yes."

"Detective Ellison, Major Crime. I understand you called the emergency services during the night after an explosion in a warehouse near the docks."

"Yes. I gave the police who attended what information I could - which wasn't much."

"I saw their report. You said you were living in part of the warehouse that was destroyed."

"Yes. I'd been doing a study on the effects of TV violence on primates - Larry was a Barbary ape. I rented the warehouse for several weeks - the owner of the apartment where I'd been living didn't allow pets and I couldn't really afford to carry on paying the rent so I could keep that apartment and move back in when I'd finished the study as well as the rent for the warehouse."

"Can you give me the address for the owner of the apartment you were in?"

"Alan Hill, 496 West Tacoma Street. Actually I'll be going to see him just after nine to see if he can let me have an apartment again; I finished the work with Larry last week, and returned him to the biology department; I won't be doing another study involving animals - not after the problems I had with housing this time - no matter what Dr. Buckner expects of me."

"I see. Do you have proof of payment of rent for the warehouse?"

Slowly, Blair shook his head. "Mr. Parris wanted paid in cash and didn't give me a receipt. I suspected that he pocketed the cash and didn't report it as income, but it was the only place I could find that would let me have Larry."

"So we only have your word for it that you were paying rent, and hadn't broken in?"

"I can prove that I borrowed Larry from the biology department. I can prove that my previous landlord wouldn't let me stay on with a 'pet'. I've handed in the paper I wrote to both Dr. Buckner who set me the study and Dr. Xavier in the biology department - he needed to know my conclusions in case of any marked change in Larry's behavior." Blair looked at the Detective. "Am I under suspicion of anything?"

"Mr. Parris denies renting any part of his warehouse to anyone. He claims he was planning on refurbishing it so that it could be used again as a warehouse - "

Blair gave an unamused bark of laughter. "Refurbished? The place needed to be demolished and rebuilt," he said. "It was in a really bad state of repair, but as I said it was the only place I could get that would let me keep Larry, even though he was in a cage much of the time. Even the owners of a couple of the other warehouses turned me down - I can give you their names if you want. They're proof that I did approach the owners of more than one warehouse, looking to rent.

"As I told the police during the night - I hadn't been aware of anyone in the other half of the building when I left it in the morning. When I got back in the evening and saw a light in the window, I was... well, very doubtful about going in." He was interrupted by his watch alarm ringing.

Ellison flinched, before saying, "What the hell do you need that for, this early in the morning?"

Blair reached for his laptop. He saved the document and closed the machine. "I was starting to work on a paper I was writing when you arrived; but I need to go out today to look for an apartment, so I set the alarm to remind myself when it was time to head out."

"I see... Just one or two more questions. What made you doubtful about going in?"

"I guessed Mr. Parris didn't much care who he rented space to, so they could have been criminals. There was a door between the two halves of the building - it was locked and I don't know if there even was a key, but I didn't trust whoever had moved into the other half not to find some way to open the door, if they knew someone was in the other half, and steal my things. Not that I had anything of value there, but losing my sleeping bag would have been an inconvenience. I decided to wait until whoever had moved in put the light out, then slip in and collect the few things I had there.

"I didn't see anyone leave the building, but I did go in after I phoned about the fire, and got my belongings, so they could have left when I was doing that, even though it only took me a couple of minutes. Do you know what happened to whoever was in that half?"

"We got five bodies. It looked as if the explosion killed them all."

Blair was aware that Ellison was watching his response.

"Oh. That's tough." It was the impersonal comment of someone totally uninvolved emotionally but who considered death - especially violent death - regrettable. He sighed. "Though... there was a heavy beam lying across my sleeping bag, when I went in for it. If I had gone in earlier and gone to bed, you might have been looking at six bodies." He hesitated for a moment, then went on. "What caused the explosion?"

"We don't know yet. We'll maybe never know. You said there was a light on - so the building had electricity?"

"Yes. At least, my side had electricity and cold water, and a toilet. I suppose the other side was the same. I used the locker room at Rainier to shower and shave; even when I was doing the study with Larry I had some teaching duties every day, but I managed to get them all slotted into the mornings. Then I could fit working with Larry into the afternoons and evenings. In any case, it wasn't fair to the little guy to leave him all day on his own. He was used to someone being around most of the day."

"What did you do about food?"

"Cold meat or cheese sandwiches, and bottled water. There was only one electric socket and I needed that for the TV. I had lunch here most days - usually soup. Since I returned Larry to Biology, I've tended to eat dinner here as well as lunch - " He indicated a small camping stove and nest of dixies on one of the shelves. "Yes, I could have used those at the warehouse, but I didn't really trust the water there not to be polluted - I gave Larry bottled water as well; here I know it's pure. Basically, the last few days, I was just using the place to sleep in till I found another proper apartment."

"And now? Until you do?"

"Dr. Stoddard - one of the lecturers here - has offered me a bed till I find and move into an apartment."

"All right. We might have more questions for you, so don't leave Cascade."

Blair looked at him. "Where would I be going, mid-semester?" he asked. "Yes, I'm post-grad, but I'm also a TA; I have responsibilities and I have no reason to neglect them. Dr. Stoddard is covering my lectures for today, maybe tomorrow, till I find somewhere to stay. But I have no need to leave Cascade - for any reason."

He left his backpack, knowing he'd be returning later in the day, whatever happened, shrugged into his jacket as he headed for the door with Detective Ellison close behind him; released the catch on the Yale lock as Ellison passed him, and pulled the door shut.

***

Blair's first stop - as he had told Ellison - was West Tacoma Street to see Alan Hill. Hill's apartments, though small, were in good condition and he dealt with any complaints expeditiously.

Hill looked at him. "Mr. Sandburg."

"Hello, sir. I was wondering if you had any apartments free?"

"What about your monkey?"

There was no point in trying to persuade the man that there was a difference between a monkey and an ape. "Finished the study I was doing last week and gave him back to the Biology Department. If I have any say in the matter I won't be doing another study involving an animal, and I don't know why Dr. Buckner assigned me that one since my subject is anthropology, not animal studies. Anyway, Dr. Stoddard gave me today to look for a proper apartment again, and you were a good landlord."

"And I don't deny you were a good tenant, until you wanted to keep that monkey in the apartment."

"Not my choice," Blair said. "If it had been feasible I'd have done the study in my office at Rainier, collected him from Biology every afternoon and put him back there every night, but Dr. Buckner, and even Dr. Xavier in Biology, insisted that would invalidate at least some of my conclusions, though I'm not sure why. Possibly because I wouldn't have been seeing - hearing - Larry's reactions once he was settled down in his cage for the night." He shrugged. "I wish now I'd just kept on paying for the apartment, though that's 20/20 hindsight."  

"In a way I wish you had, because as I said you were a good tenant. But someone else is in it now, and I've nothing empty at the moment. Come back at the end of the semester and I'll have several apartments empty, but for the moment, I'm sorry, I've nothing. Can't you stay where you were with the monkey till then?"

"No. It was part of a run-down warehouse that wasn't actually fit for living in, but in any case it was burned down last night. There was someone else in another part of the building who managed to incinerate it."

"So what will you do if you can't get an apartment right away?" Hill sounded surprisingly concerned.

"Dr. Stoddard has offered me the use of his spare room, but obviously I don't want to take advantage of his good nature if I can avoid it. You don't happen to know of anyone who might have an apartment free? Even a single room would do."

"Try Grant Moore at 1384 5th Street. I don't say he has anything empty at the moment but I know he has one or two one-room apartments, and most people want at least two rooms."

"Thanks."

Blair left and headed for 5th Street.

It didn't take him long to find the appropriate office. It was a woman 'manning' reception, and when he explained what he wanted, she nodded thoughtfully.

"We do have a very small two-room apartment vacant at the moment - but if I'm honest, nobody who's looked at it wants it although it's only $100 a month. We converted a big store into apartments a few years ago, and this was... in effect, a corner on the third floor that really should have been left as part of the apartment next to it. We planned on varying the sizes of the apartments, including two or three smallish ones, but the builders made a mistake with the measurements and we didn't realize just how small this one would be until everything was finished. We did have a tenant in it at first, but he moved out after two years, and as I said, nobody who's looked at it since has wanted it. Ideally we should put in a door and link it to the apartment next to it, give that an extra two rooms, but the guy in 307 doesn't want the upheaval, even though it would only be for a few days - a week at most."

"I don't mind very small - I'm sort of between a rock and a hard place at the moment - had to sleep in my car last night after the place I was in burned down. As long as it has enough space for a table, a chair and a bed, it'll probably do fine."

She pressed a buzzer and almost immediately a young man appeared. "Rick, this is Mr. Sandburg. He wants a look at apartment 308, 852 Prospect." She handed him a key.

"Yes, Mrs. Moore." He indicated the door. "Do you have a car, sir?"

"Yes."

"Well, if you'll follow me?" He led the way along the corridor. "But if we get separated - say at a red light - you know where Prospect Avenue is?"

"Roughly."

"And it's number 852. I'll park as close to it as I can, and wait for you at the entrance if you've fallen behind me."

"Right." _As if I didn't hear her say 852,_ Blair thought.

But in fact Blair didn't lose Rick, and they pulled up together in front of the building and went in.

Blair shook his mental head as Rick called the elevator. Two flights of stairs, for goodness' sake! If he did take this tiny apartment, he doubted he'd ever need to use the elevator! Well, maybe to get some furniture in, but apart from that?

It was no distance along the corridor to No. 308, and Rick unlocked the door.

It was indeed small. Long enough, but very narrow; and about four feet into it a flight of steps led to an upper level. He walked up the length of it while Rick waited at the door.

At the end furthest from the door, was a bathroom - well, shower room. It had a shower, sink and toilet, a shelf for toiletries and a mirror. Small and functional. Next to it was a tiny kitchen - a sink, a small refrigerator and a two-burner stove with a grill and an oven. Again, adequate. Outside it, he paused and looked down the length of the room towards the door, mentally furnishing it.

There wasn't much height under the length of at least half the stairs, and he decided that that was possibly what had discouraged a lot of the people who had looked at the place. But he could put a table and chair under the topmost part of the steps - a small table to hold his laptop or any papers he brought home to grade, with a chair that could be pushed under the table. It would have to be a dining-type chair; an armchair was out of the question, but it should be possible to get one with a padded seat and back. Perhaps two, for if he had a visitor? He could fit in a small bookcase between the chair and the kitchen. And he could use the shallow space under the bottom few steps to store things like the duffel bag he used as a suitcase.

He made his way back towards the door, and went up the steps.

Because of the steps, the upstairs room was much smaller than the downstairs one.

A twin bed would fit right at the end of the room, above the bathroom and kitchen, with a bedside cabinet beside it. At the foot of the bed, under the window, was enough space for a small storage unit for his clothes, and he could fit a few more books onto the top of it. There wasn't much space between the stairs, where, for safety, a partition blocked the side of them, and the wall that separated his apartment from 307, but if he hung a curtain there he would have a narrow closet that could hold cleaning things.

Yes. It was indeed extremely... compact. He checked for electric sockets. He would need one for his laptop, one to charge his phone - he didn't see any sign of a socket for a land line, though he did find one in the downstairs room a few days after he moved in - one for a heater, possibly one for a TV, if he bothered replacing the small one he had bought for the warehouse... possibly one for a small lamp. Yes. There was a set of four sockets beside where he thought of putting his bed. He went back downstairs. There was another set of four sockets beside the window, and two more beside the kitchen wall. Ten sockets for an apartment this size? That was a pretty generous allowance for an apartment he reckoned was roughly 150 square feet downstairs and 120 upstairs. Of course, no matter its size, any apartment needed sockets for things like lamps, TV, heaters...

Its biggest problem was its shape. Because of where the stairs were, and with a curve at the top of them leaving the top two steps at right angles to the main length of the stair, all the furniture, in both rooms, would have to be put against the wall with the window, leaving a narrow 'corridor' along the length of the inside wall. But for Blair, that was a minor detail. $100 a month was a lot less than he'd paid Parris for the warehouse, and he wouldn't be sharing it with several families of rats.

It would certainly do for what was left of the semester, and if he did find the cramped nature of the apartment too uncomfortable, he could approach Mr. Hill again once the graduating students had left and before next year's sophomores started looking for apartments rather than spending another year in the university accommodation where most of the freshmen lived.

He looked at Rick. "I'll take it," he said.

He followed Rick back, completed the paperwork, paid two months' rent - he would certainly be staying there that long - then went in search of some cheap furniture.

By mid-afternoon he had everything he needed bought and transported to his tiny apartment. The things that were sitting in his office he could take home that evening.

He went back to Rainier and told Dr. Stoddard that he had found a small apartment that he had been able to move into immediately, thanked him again for the offer of a bed, and headed back to his office. He gathered up his things and made his way back to his new home.

***

He found a space to park quite near the front door, collected the cases with his clothes and food, and crossed briskly to the door. Someone had just gone in and he pushed the door open again before it had time to swing completely shut.

A man who looked too fit to be lazy enough to wait for the elevator was just pressing the button for it - though he was carrying several bags of what looked like groceries. Blair thought for a moment, decided that with what he was carrying the elevator did seem like a good idea, and it would give him the chance to meet one of his new neighbors.

As he crossed to the elevator, he said cheerfully, "Hello."

The man looked around, and Blair's mouth dropped open. "Detective Ellison!"

No. Ellison hadn't tracked him down. Not when he was here with several bags of groceries... "Looks as if we're neighbors!"

"Neighbors?" Ellison looked slightly puzzled.

Blair grinned. "Mr. Hill didn't have a free apartment, but he said Mr. Moore might have one... and he did. It's small, but hey, it's a roof over my head - " He was interrupted by the arrival of the elevator. As they entered it he continued, "And it's a good price for a grad student."

"Don't tell me - 308?"

Blair grinned as he nodded, and Ellison went on. "I actually bought my apartment. Mr. Moore tried to sell me 308 as well after the first tenant moved out - "

"Ah - you're the 'guy in 307'? Thought joining it onto yours would be too much hassle?"

"Yeah." Ellison pressed the button for the third floor, and with a jerk the elevator started upwards. "I'm not saying that a small self-contained addition mightn't have been an advantage to me, because my apartment is open-plan, but because the place had already been laid out as a separate apartment, it really would have been too much hassle - the kitchen area would have had to be removed - okay, that would have been done in the room - but finding someplace to put in a door - because of the way my place is laid out, that wouldn't have been easy." The elevator stopped and the door slid open. Blair let Ellison get out first, and followed before the door had time to close again.

As they headed for their respective apartments, Blair said cheerfully, "Well, at least this keeps me readily available if you need to ask me anything more about the warehouse."

Ellison gave him what could only be called a slightly appreciative grin as he stopped at his door. "I'll bear that in mind."

***

Small though his 'apartment' was, Blair quickly discovered that its very compactness was an advantage. Also, if it had been left as one room, the ceiling would have been very high and it would have been difficult to heat, but split into two levels meant both could be heated far more efficiently, and he found himself wondering if the other seven apartments on this level had 'upstairs' rooms or just very high ceilings. Though Ellison had said something about open plan and a small self-contained room possibly being an advantage to him, which implied that he didn't have any separate rooms for visitors.

Well, Blair decided, he had no need to bother about any problems the other tenants had with heating their apartments. Presumably they had all considered that before leasing or buying them.

But he still found himself wondering why Grant Moore had accepted the 'builder's mistake' and left this narrow strip of the floor to make such a tiny apartment instead of making the builder strip out everything and making 307 that seven feet wider in the first place... especially when he had then offered to link it to 307, to make the two apartments into one.

***

Over the next week or two Blair met several of his neighbors - not just the ones on the third floor, but also on the second. He found them friendly; on his third day there, Mrs. Hoskins, the widow living in 204, handed in some cookies she had baked. He accepted them with a touch of embarrassment, frankly not realizing until later that evening that it was her way of thanking him for the help he had given her by carrying in her groceries the previous day.

He had already begun to think that he wouldn't bother leaving this tiny apartment at the end of the semester; he liked his neighbors - even Detective Ellison had been friendly in an off-hand way, and the tiny apartment was cheap and surprisingly comfortable. He was even able to save some money; Alan Hill's small apartments, while relatively inexpensive, were somewhat dearer than this one, and putting the difference into a savings account was painless and gave him a monetary reserve that he appreciated having. Well, he had time to think about that; he didn't know yet if Moore would be as good a landlord as Hill had been, but he had discovered that the tenants who had leases had all been there since the building was converted into apartments. That, Blair considered, was a good recommendation.

***

Although he no longer had to allow for Larry's needs or observe the little ape as he watched television programs that Blair himself found boring - one of several reasons he really hadn't enjoyed doing the study Dr. Buckner had given him - for the remainder of this semester, at least, all the classes he taught would remain scheduled for the mornings. He had found that convenient, and hoped to persuade Dr. Stoddard to continue scheduling all his classes for the mornings. His afternoons were now free for office hours and working on his nearly-stalled dissertation.

He had written his Masters thesis on sentinels, leaning heavily on Richard Burton's book The Sentinels of Paraguay - and he had found himself wondering why Burton had never mentioned sentinels in any of the other countries he had visited. But to write his PhD dissertation on sentinels as well - he couldn't use Burton's book as a source a second time... He was struggling.

By visiting opticians, he had found a few people with extremely good distance vision, but most of them needed glasses for reading. He had found people with better than average senses of taste and smell by contacting tea and coffee manufacturers. A visit to a massage parlor provided information on people with a good sense of touch. But he hadn't been able to find anyone with better than average hearing, or anyone with more than two senses heightened, and the two were always taste and sense of smell, which were always linked. But although they all had one or two senses better than average, it was still only one or two - good for a chapter, but he couldn't base an entire dissertation on heightened senses on them.

He had a chapter roughed out on why heightened senses didn't seem to be as... not common, they had never been _common_ … likely to   _show up_ in the so-called civilized world as they were in so-called primitive cultures.

Early one afternoon about a month after handing in his paper on Larry, he sat and re-read that chapter, and realized that it provided a counterpoint to his Masters' thesis. Could he possibly expand this chapter into a full dissertation?

He began to make notes, expanding on the sketchy points he had already considered, and over the next few days worked on developing those points in more detail.

And then three days later...

He left his apartment a little earlier than usual and headed for the stairs. Halfway down the first flight, a figure was standing absolutely still, head slightly tilted as if he was listening.

He recognized the man instantly. "Detective Ellison?"

There was no response. Ellison remained unmoving, making no attempt to acknowledge Blair's presence.

"Detective Ellison? Are you all right?"

No response.

Blair drew in a sharp breath, his mind drawn back to one of the notes he had scribbled down just a day or two previously. _One of the drawbacks for a sentinel in today's world is the amount of unexpected stimulus he would face daily._

No. It wasn't possible... was it?

He looked at Ellison again. The detective's head, tilted as if he could hear something, and was concentrating, trying to decide what he was hearing...

Blair strained his ears but could hear nothing.

About to touch Ellison's arm to attract his attention, Blair paused. Standing on the stair like this, apparently oblivious of everything except what he was hearing, or trying to hear - if his attention was suddenly attracted, it wasn't impossible that Ellison might lose his balance and take a header down the final half dozen steps to the landing below.

Moving slowly, careful not to touch the man, Blair edged around him until he was standing two steps below him. He gripped the bannister firmly with one hand and leaned forward a little, bracing himself again a possibly sudden weight pushing against him. Then he reached forward with the other hand and touched Ellison's arm.

"Detective? Hey, Detective, stop daydreaming and come back to the here and now. Whatever you think you're hearing seems to have gone, and just standing here on the stairs isn't helping anyone - "

Ellison gave a sudden jerk, and if Blair hadn't braced himself they would both have fallen several steps onto the landing.

"Oh... Mr. Sandburg. What... ?"

"You were just standing there, Detective, completely oblivious of your surroundings. Looked as if you were listening to something, but when I came along, I couldn't hear anything."

"Yes... I thought I could hear Mrs. Proust's toddler screaming... I was trying to hear if he was just hungry or if... " He broke off.

"Go on," Blair encouraged. "If?"

"Proust served three months for battering his baby son just before you moved here," Ellison said. "He... he was barred from seeing the kid, but Mrs. Proust... "

Blair nodded understandingly. "I know the gossip," he said. "She's either besotted and can't see past him, or so intimidated by him that she can't say no to him. Depends who you speak to. I've met most of the neighbors, but I don't think I've seen her."

"I was never sure what her problem was, but I think his problem was that he wanted her entire attention to be on him; basically he should have made sure he didn't leave her pregnant, because the kid was a rival for her attention."

"Or maybe he did take precautions but she got pregnant in spite of them - and no contraceptive is guaranteed 100% - so maybe he suspected she'd slept with someone else even though she denied it, thought the kid wasn't his so didn't deserve any attention other than 'shut up and keep out of my sight!'... Though in that case I think I'd have demanded a DNA test."

"I'd doubt Proust knew that was possible; he wasn't stupid, exactly, but I suspect he spent more time dodging school when he was school-age than he did attending. I barely knew her, but I used to see him sometimes. Fluent in four-letter words, found any words with more than two syllables pretty well incomprehensible."

Blair grinned. "I had a student like that, a couple of years ago. To hear him speak, you'd think he had the IQ of a mentally-challenged dormouse; didn't seem to know any adjective that didn't start with f. With essay-type tests, though, he was surprisingly adept at explaining the most challenging concepts in words of one or two syllables, and he aced multiple choice questions... as long as they didn't include big words like chocolate. He got a BA last year then left Rainier; I wonder sometimes what happened to him, where he went."

Ellison suddenly lifted his head again. "Andy Proust is crying again - will you come with me as an independent witness, in case... "

"I'm with you."

Blair followed as Ellison headed for apartment 206. He couldn't hear anything, but he had no doubt that Ellison did.

As they stopped at the door of 206, Blair finally heard the child. Ellison banged on the door.

There was no response, and Ellison twisted the handle, although he expected the door to be locked. To his surprise it opened, and he rushed in.

The child was lying on a fairly threadbare couch crying, but at first sight he looked unharmed. In the kitchen area, however -

A woman lay in a pool of blood, and Blair gasped in horror.

"Call 911!" Ellison exclaimed as he ran forward. He was dropping to his knees beside the woman as Blair obeyed.

Blair hung up  as Ellison pushed himself upright. "She's dead," he said. "Stabbed - multiple times. I think she's been dead several hours." He went over to the child and pulled it into a sitting position. The scream it gave as he did was piercing. Ellison hissed and flinched. There were no marks on the child's face; he unfastened the buttons on the boy's clothes and bared the youngster's chest... to reveal a mass of what looked like very fresh bruises.

"You think maybe Proust came back last night, and... " Blair managed.

"Battered the kid again, then maybe killed his wife when she tried to intervene? No - where she's lying, I think he killed her first, then battered Andy - maybe thought he'd killed him too if Andy collapsed unconscious." He sighed. "Not sure who'll be given the case, but it'll probably be Homicide." He tilted his head again. "Ambulance'll be here in a couple of minutes."

A couple of Patrol officers arrived first, however.

Although Ellison knew a lot of the Patrol cops, he didn't know this pair, and flashed his ID.

They acknowledged it, then turned their attention to Blair. "And you are?"

"Blair Sandburg. I live in Apartment 308."

"I'm in 307," Ellison put in. "Sandburg and I happened to leave our respective apartments at the same time this morning. We were coming down the stairs and just as we reached this level we heard Andy Proust screaming. His father did time earlier this year for battering the kid, and - " He broke off as the EMTs arrived - these were men he knew. "John, Ray. We've got a body, and an injured child. I don't know how badly injured he is, but his chest is bruised and I think he could have a broken arm."

"Right, Jim. Any other info you can give us?"

"My neighbor called it in as I was checking Mrs. Proust, before I knew she was dead."

One of the two was already heading for the body. The other said, "You're sure." It was a statement, not a question.

Ellison nodded. "I couldn't detect a pulse, and from the amount of blood she's lost - I don't think there's any way she could have survived the attack."

"We'll take her to the hospital, though, get a doctor to confirm it before she goes to the morgue."

While Ellison was dealing with the EMTs, the two Patrol cops turned their attention back to Blair.

"So you were coming down the stairs when you heard the child screaming? Why did you use the stairs and not the elevator?"

"It's only a couple of flights, and seriously? Faster taking the stairs. I suspect the elevator was left in as a convenience when the building was converted from a store into a set of apartments. Most of us only use the elevator if we're carrying two or three bags of groceries. We'd just reached this level when we heard the screaming. Detective Ellison knocked on the door, and when nobody answered, he tried to open the door - and it wasn't locked. As soon as we saw - " he gestured - "he went to check Mrs. Proust and I called 911."

"And what he was saying about Mr. Proust - ?"

"It was before I moved in, so I only know what I've been told. But if the man served a prison sentence it'll surely be a matter of record?"

"All right. If we need you, we'll get you here?"

"Apartment 308 - or at Rainier. I'm a TA there, assisting Dr. Stoddard."

***

After a quick word with Ellison, Blair headed off to Rainier. Luckily the first class he had to teach wasn't until eleven, so although the delay was a nuisance that prevented him from getting on with some of the work on his 'pets' paper he had hoped to cover, that was all it was; a nuisance. Detective Ellison definitely seemed to show signs of heightened hearing, though, and he wondered how he could approach the subject of enhanced senses with the man.

Though he doubted very much that he would be able to write a dissertation using just one subject - and he doubted even more that Ellison would be willing to be a subject.

No; he could approach Ellison, mention enhanced senses to him... but still make the subject of his dissertation why sentinels were less likely to appear in the modern world.

But... if he could study Ellison... it might give him some material for inclusion. Like the man's potentially dangerous zone out on the stairs. Easy enough to speculate on other potentially dangerous situations.

He drove into the parking lot at Rainier, parked in his preferred spot - although the place was busier than when he usually arrived, he thought it probable that everyone here had parked where they usually did. The problems would come later in the day, when most of the 'regular' spaces were filled, as well as most of the marked visitor spaces. There were always a few people coming in, grabbing whatever spaces they could find.

As he left his car, he grinned, only half amused. It was the same in the classroom... students had their chosen seats; but it was choice. Custom. Nobody had the right to any given seat - or to any specific parking space, except for the handful of senior staff who merited one - and those spaces were marked with the names of the designated users. But it was surprising how many of the 'rank and file' users complained - at least to their friends - if they weren't able to park in their preferred spot, or if someone auditing a class arrived early and occupied 'their' seat.

And he was just as bad, he admitted to himself. He had been quite relieved to discover that even although he was later than usual, nobody had taken 'his' parking space.

Could he perhaps get a paper out of that?

He hurried down to his 'office' - a seldom-used storage room - plugged in his laptop and opened it. Moments later he had opened a file called 'ideas' and typed in 'Preference for a specific desk, parking place, seat in the common room.' and saved the altered file. Odds were it would join the many other ideas he had noted down that would never be developed, but better that, he considered, than forgetting them all.

Then he opened his dissertation folder and typed in 'JE - enhanced hearing?' and saved that.

After that he opened the file with the paper he was currently working on, deciding that it was getting very near the time when he would have to start asking people if they had a pet, and if so what it was, and why they had chosen that particular kind of animal. He would, he knew, start with the student he had discovered kept a tarantula as a pet.

***

Although he had been living in Apartment 308 for over a month and was well aware that the neighborhood was safer than the warehouse area around the docks, he still hadn't taken a lot of his things home from Rainier. Just one or two books he had wanted to refer to when he was working on something.

Perhaps it was time to take home The Sentinels of Paraguay, take it to Apartment 307, show it to Ellison... and see what the detective had to say? But in any case, he needed to take it home, needed to refer to it for his dissertation, which he was working on at home. The pets paper, while it should find a publisher easily enough, was less demanding - and something that he needed to have to hand at Rainier. Something to work on that wouldn't matter if he was called away from it by a student. Something to occupy the often otherwise wasted office hours when no students turned up wanting to discuss something. Something to have immediately to hand for when he started speaking to pet owners.

He chuckled, only half amused by the realization that he had always done that since he had merited space - wherever he could find it - to use as an office. He worked on the more important papers at home, where he was less likely to be disturbed. The less important papers, the ones done purely for the 'publish or perish' demands of his academic career, he tackled during his office hours when he could be interrupted at any time. If he did forget a sudden insight because of an interruption, it would be an annoyance but he wouldn't be left feeling that he was leaving out something that was potentially of great importance.

That didn't stop him from noting down passing thoughts - like the one he had just added to his ideas file - as they occurred to him, and some of them he would work into articles for submission to a magazine. He could work on those anywhere. But the important ideas - those, he always worked on at home.

He shook his head. Larry had been a prime example of working at home on something not particularly important, but there had been nowhere else to do it... and he was still far from certain why Dr. Buckner had wanted it done and assigned it to him. And while he was working on it, he had been unable to do any work on his dissertation. It wasn't as if he could submit the Larry paper anywhere, either. What magazine would be interested in an article on the effects of TV violence on a Barbary ape? How many Barbary apes ever even saw TV? And why - why - had Dr. Buckner wanted that study done and why give it to him?

But Blair thought he knew. He and Buckner had never totally seen eye to eye, and he suspected it was Buckner's way of enforcing his authority over the young TA who - Blair knew without blowing his own trumpet - was actually far cleverer than the hidebound Professor who had probably never had a totally original thought in his life. And, in addition, a way of wasting several weeks of Blair's time when he could have been doing - studying - writing up - something far more useful.

He stood, stretched, and went to the shelf where he kept his books. He took down The Sentinels of Paraguay, then checked along the shelf to see which other book - books - he could take home. He picked out two more, put all three into his backpack, then turned his attention to the shelf where he had stored his collection of artifacts.

Blair used a lot of them as visual aids in his lectures, but there were several that - for various reasons - were personal, stored here because he hadn't wanted to have anything he considered valuable in the warehouse - though he doubted any thief would be interested in them, see any value in them. However, having failed to find anything he considered worth stealing in the place, a thief might well vandalize it, destroying anything the owner might consider of sentimental value out of sheer spite. Why any potential thief would think that someone living in a broken-down, derelict warehouse would have anything of monetary value was a mystery, but in his years traveling with his mother, Blair had come to realize that there were some people who would knock out a man who had lost his leg and steal the prosthetic if they thought they could get a few dollars for it.

He picked out the personal artifacts, putting them carefully into his backpack, then put it beside his chair. Sitting, he turned his attention back to the document showing on the monitor. He had at least half an hour left to work on the article.

***

Tom Andrews, the student with the pet tarantula was in his eleven o'clock class, so Blair took the chance to ask him to come back to his office to tell him about it.

Afterwards, he still couldn't fully understand why anyone would want to have a spider as a pet - it wasn't as if it was cuddly or gave its owner obvious affection, but he found he did understand the fascination of being able to watch the creature at close quarters. It would make a good contrast to the reasons people kept cats or dogs. And he had learned one new fact; a tarantula's bite, though quite painful, was less venomous than a bee sting.

And he did find himself wondering why Tom was studying anthropology when this little chat showed clearly that the young man was very interested in zoology.

Blair finished typing up his conclusions on Tom and his tarantula, closed down his computer, unplugged it, pushed it carefully into his backpack and headed for the door.

***

Once home, he unpacked everything carefully, leaving the books downstairs and taking everything else upstairs. He found space for the artifacts on the unit at the foot of his bed, putting the books already sitting there on the bed - those could go downstairs. The artifacts were a little crowded, but that didn't matter; then he put the two he most valued on the bedside cabinet. That put them where he could easily see them and made just a fraction more space for the others. There was still plenty of space on the cabinet for a small clock, his bedside lamp and whatever book he had chosen for bedtime reading.

He paused, sitting on the bed, and gently stroked the head of the beautifully carved wooden wolf an elderly Inuit shaman had given him just before his eighth birthday. Even then he had known that the gift was of considerable significance, and he knew that Inuksuk would have taught him a great deal if he had been able to stay with the tribe. But Naomi, always restless, had decided it was time to move on, and Blair was still young enough that even Inuksuk knew that there was no argument he could make to persuade her to leave her young son with him, even if she returned for him in a few months. He had told Blair that the wolf would watch over him; Blair assured him that he would always treasure it.

After he went to Rainier, Blair took the opportunity to visit Inuksuk's tribe, hoping to spend some time with his old friend, only to learn that the shaman had died two years earlier. He was able to visit the old man's grave - marked by a white stone - and told him how much he still valued the carved wolf; and when he left, Blair was sure that Inuksuk was pleased.

The other item was another carved wooden animal that he had been given, some two years earlier, again by a tribal shaman, this time in the Amazon rain forest; carved from a very dark wood, it was a jaguar. Mukashe said only that this was an animal that would have significance to him at some future time.

But although he valued the jaguar, appreciating the gift from the shaman, it was the wolf he treasured. Inuksuk had been a friend in a way that Mukashe wasn't.

After a few minutes he got up, gathered up the books on his bed, pushed them into his backpack and took it downstairs.

He fitted the books onto the units, and shook his head. He wouldn't be able to get any more books there; time to think about finding some new shelving. Maybe a two-shelf 'bookcase' to sit on the unit, or on the floor under the stairs, though it would give him less room for his duffel and backpack.

The alternative was to stop buying books, and he couldn't imagine that as a viable option. He could leave some at Rainier, certainly, but one day he would get his PhD; and then what? Chancellor Edwards was highly unlikely to want him as a member of staff even if there was a vacancy; only Eli Stoddard's insistence that he wanted Blair as his TA, threatening to move to another university if he'd been refused, had gained Blair the job.

Well, time enough to think of his future when it arrived.

He was hungry - well, he had missed lunch, between speaking to Tom and collecting everything he wanted to bring home - so he prepared a quick stir fry, ate, washed up, then turned his attention to Burton's book, turning pages until he found the reference he wanted. He slipped a piece of paper in to mark the place and closed the book, then checked the time.

For once he was early; it was just a little past five. No way would Ellison be home yet. And for once he found himself wishing that the dividing walls were a little less solid, so that he could hear when his neighbor returned home - but they were solid enough that he doubted that even someone with enhanced hearing would hear ordinary going-about-my-business sounds. Young Andy Proust screaming, yes - but that was through a door, and even so Ellison hadn't been sure enough, from his position on the stairs, that that was what he was hearing, especially once the kid had fallen silent.

***

Blair waited until nearly eight, then picked up the book and went out, carefully locking the door. He didn't expect any visitors, he didn't really expect that anyone would try to break into his tiny apartment, but the habit of locking his door was well ingrained. Yes, he might have to unlock it again inside thirty seconds if Ellison wasn't home yet, but if Ellison _was_ home it might be a while before they finished talking. So much depended on how Ellison reacted to what he had to say.

He knocked on the door, and it was opened within seconds. "Mr. Sandburg."

He had had time to think about how best to approach things. "Hello, Detective. I've been thinking about this morning, and I was wondering... have you any idea how Andy is?"

Ellison hesitated for a moment, probably, Blair thought, wondering why he was carrying a fairly heavy book, before saying, "Come in."

Blair went in, noting that even though its occupant was in the apartment he still locked the door, and followed Ellison to a very comfortable-looking couch. As they reached it, Ellison asked, "Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, beer..."

"No, I'm fine, thanks." He sat, and Ellison joined him.

"Andy... " Ellison said. "He's in a pretty bad way. Worse than when his father battered him before. Several broken ribs, a broken arm... He'll be in the hospital for three or four weeks, then Social Services will find him a foster home."

Blair nodded. "You couldn't expect a foster home to take a kid who'd been that badly injured before the bones were at least half healed."

"And he'll need very sympathetic treatment. He probably doesn't know that his mother is dead, though he has to know she was hurt, so he will ask for her."

"Just how old is he?" Blair asked.

"Not quite four."

"Old enough then, to be aware..."

"Yes."

"Poor kid." Blair sighed, then went on. "But that wasn't the only reason I came to see you.

"You might think this is being intrusive, even in a way nosy, but I'm asking you to hear me out."

Ellison looked at him a little suspiciously. Blair licked his lips a little nervously, then opened The Sentinels of Paraguay at the page he had marked, and handed it over. "This book was written over a hundred years ago by a... you could say he was an explorer with an interest in anthropology - something that was rare in his time. Explorers back then were more interested in telling the world what they had seen, taking new plants back to 'civilization'. Burton was interested in the people he met, in their way of life.

"I've been on quite a few expeditions, and I always made a point of asking the tribes I visited about men with the gifts Burton mentioned. Nobody would admit that their tribe had a sentinel... but a few said they knew of such men, that their tribe had had one in the past. Read it."

Ellison threw him another suspicious look, then began reading. After a minute -

"What the hell - " He glared at Blair.

"Check the publication date if you want - if you can," Blair said. "It's in Roman numerals, which shows how old the book is."

"You could have got this... " He opened the book several pages further on, then further on again, and Blair guessed he was looking for where the print disappeared to be replaced by blank pages.

"Detective, I'm a grad student - a TA. I don't have that much money. Faking an old book like this would cost thousands of dollars more than I have. In the right market this book is worth far more than I could  afford to pay for it, but I picked it up cheap in South America a few years ago. The trader hadn't a clue what it would be worth in an English-speaking country; he didn't want to throw out a book, but he was glad to get rid of it for a few dollars, and he probably thought that what he was charging was cheating me. But I've found it so interesting... I based my Master's Thesis on it, and I'm planning on using the facts in it for my doctoral dissertation, slanting it in a different direction. The thing is... your reactions this morning reminded me of some of the things I read in there, and I couldn't help but wonder if your senses - at least your hearing - is enhanced. And you were like a statue on the stair when I found you - classic zone-out behavior, caused, I'd say, by trying to hear Andy yelling when, for a moment, he'd quieted down."

Ellison closed the book and put it down on the coffee table that sat in front of the couch. "Give me the condensed version."

***

Even the condensed version was fairly lengthy - but at least it was in simpler language than Burton's sometimes fairly verbose terminology. As Blair spoke, Ellison's expression took on a surprisingly understanding look.

"Incacha!" Ellison whispered.

Blair frowned, puzzled by the non sequitur. "Detective?" he asked.

Ellison looked at him. "You... you can call me Jim."

Now that was interesting.

"Jim? Who's Incacha?" Blair asked.

"Several years ago... when I was is the army... My squad was sent to Peru. I can't go into details about why, but we were still flying in when our helicopter was shot down - I never found out who was responsible, but there were a lot of drug gangs in the area, gathering plants to be processed into drugs, and it was probably one of them. Anyway, everyone else was killed. Why I survived relatively uninjured I don't know... Anyway, a local tribe took me in, and their shaman... Incacha... said I had a gift. He worked with me - or I worked with him, it's hard to be sure. But what you're telling me... a lot of it is what he told me. He helped me control my senses... but he always told me that I would find my true partner in my own land.

"It was eighteen months before I was rescued... My period of enlistment was up, and I chose to take my discharge, and joined the police.

"I... After I came back, I didn't seem to have the ability to see or hear as well as I did in the jungle. Even when I thought I heard Andy, I wasn't totally sure... but today I've been aware of hearing and seeing much better than I did even as recently as yesterday."

"Have you met someone new recently?" Blair asked.

"Only you. And you know about... about... "

They looked at each other. "Chief, I'm wondering... are you the 'true partner' Incacha mentioned?"

"I'm... nothing special," Blair managed.

"You... This morning, when I froze on the stairs - you knew what was wrong, what to do, how to bring me back to the here and now safely."

"Only because I'd read Burton."

"Chief, you said you'd spoken to tribes who at least knew of men with heightened senses. Even though I'd pretty well forgotten, I know about that because of my time with the Chopek.  Who in our technological world has ever heard of such a thing? You only know because you read this book."

"Well, yes."

"But because you've read it, you know enough to help me - and I'm not too proud to ask you to give me that help."

Blair pushed back a lock of hair that was falling into his eyes. "Jim, I've got a job. I'm a TA at Rainier, and I have responsibilities there. I owe Eli Stoddard a lot, and I can't - I won't - walk out on those responsibilities. In any case - working as a TA doesn't give me a huge wage, but it's a wage. Without it, I'd have to take out a bigger student loan - and frankly, my debts are high enough."

"I'm not asking you to abandon Rainier. Now that I've remembered... Yes, I worked with Incacha a lot of the time, but not all of the time; I often went out with the hunters - Incacha, the tribal shaman, didn't; he had other work to do, gathering herbs, making drugs to ease illness. He taught me things, and I was able to use what he taught me to maintain control when he wasn't there. What I'm asking... If you have time away from your work at Rainier, can you work with me at the PD? In the evenings, can you go over ways I can control the input I get?"

"All I know, I know from what's in Burton's book," Blair said slowly. "And he was seeing men who'd grown up with their senses, with companions who knew what they were doing. I don't say it'd be the blind leading the blind, but it wouldn't be far from it."

"I'm willing to take that chance," Jim said.

"Okay. I'm not saying no, but let me think about it, because it'd be a fair balancing act, and no matter how much we could wish for more, there are still just twenty-four hours in the day, and some of them have to be used for sleeping. I'll need to discuss things with Eli - and I'll swear him to silence, because I do recognize that you don't need the world to know what you can do. But I have to admit that if it's possible to fit in two or three hours a day working with you, I'd be happy to do it. I've just got to look at what's feasible."

"I can see that," Jim agreed.

"I'll let you know tomorrow night," Blair promised.

***

Blair had expected Eli Stoddard to be sympathetic, and he was, easily promising to keep the knowledge of Jim's senses to himself.

"Working with Detective Ellison should help me get info for my dissertation," Blair said.

"Just what are you planning for it?" Stoddard asked.

"Well, I did my Masters on sentinels and what they did for their communities; but I leaned a lot on Burton for that. I was thinking this time of writing about the downside of heightened senses. Burton mentioned one or two, and I've already seen one with Detective Ellison; working with him should give me the chance to see more of the difficulties a sentinel might experience, though obviously I'll have to keep everything very general.

"So I was wondering... While I was doing that weird study Professor Buckner got me to do, he got you to assign all my teaching to the mornings."

Stoddard nodded. "You're right, I didn't understand why he wanted you to do that study - a zoology – or possibly psychology - student would have got more out of it. But I see what you're getting at - if all your teaching is in the morning, it'll leave the afternoons free for you to work with Ellison."

"It'll leave me a bit short on office hours, but it'll be research for my dissertation."

"Right, my boy, you've got it. You have some free time in the mornings, right?"

"Yes. I can slot office hours into that."

"Right. Officially you have the afternoons off for research."

"Thanks."

***

Okay. Now he officially had time to work with his newly-discovered sentinel - or part sentinel, since he still had to establish whether or not Jim had all five senses enhanced.

And helping Jim would probably involve being allowed to ride along with him as he pursued his detective work. Blair wasn't sure how Jim would react to that... but if he genuinely wanted help, he would have to accept it.

Blair grinned as he headed for his car. He was going to be very busy for the next few months. But already he was beginning to look forward to what he realized was going to be quite a challenging time.

 

 

 

 


End file.
